How many times have I heard about someone highly gifted, skilled, and willing who has been relegated to doing some menial task in the church? It’s often all in the name of “servanthood” and to be sure, the church would not run without its’ custodians. But it begs to ask the question: Is that all the people of God are for? Custodial work in a church building??? Oftentimes we have created a consumerism towards doing church such that 5% of the congregation actively puts on a show for a remaining 95% who sit passively, helplessly, and idly by. To be politically correct, we’ll give people titles and opportunities to serve, but oftentimes the work of the “ministry” is kept to the few and the elite.
Something is SERIOUSLY wrong with this.
How often have you, a gifted individual, found yourself “serving” in on of the following capacities?
- Folding bulletins
- Directing traffic
- Greeting at the door
- Preparing coffee
- Vacuuming the carpet
Have you ever questioned if there is more?
It is a terrible thing to watch highly motivated, missional and enthusiastic people languish away for lack of opportunities to do something significant in and via the church. We want to serve meaningfully and yet there are no opportunities aside from church maintenance. At missio we hope to do more. We hope to do better.
We envision just the opposite of the big box church:
What we hope to accomplish @ missio is the creation of a mission collective, an atmosphere where “serving” means something altogether different from finding a place to plug you in to run the big machine. Serving means seriousness, initiative, entrepreneurism. We hope to foster that with the creation of a “co-op” or a mission collective – a thinktank of sorts, where socially / evangelically-minded people can collaborate under one roof. We envision:
- An environment conducive to making people’s desire for service come true. A vehicle for that dream you’ve had to do great good in your community.
- Fostering and equipping community and kingdom-minded “entities” (non-profs, orgs) all under one roof.
- Collaborative thinking and partnership across sectors. Thus, a “thinktank”.
- Education.
- Mission. In some ways this comes to represent a “mission” as much as it does a “church”. In some ways it is reminiscient of the old parish churches of Catholicism, which ministered to the poor, to the sick, to the widow, as well as ministering the Gospel, Sacrament, and Word.
- Redefining “service” in the church.
